


Sitting Pretty

by Carmenlire



Series: Who Is in Control [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, BAMF Alec, Bad Parent Robert Lightwood, Blood and Violence, Derogatory Language, Domestic Violence, Dubious Morality, Ethical Dilemmas, Explicit Language, M/M, Organized Crime, Pre-Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Protective Jace Wayland, Supportive Jace Wayland, crimelord Alec
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 20:18:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17453609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmenlire/pseuds/Carmenlire
Summary: Hovering over the judge, Alec meets his gaze and now he sees what he must have looked like just a few moments before. He sees the gut-wrenching terror as Huckley faces his mortality at Alec’s own hand.For his part, Alec doesn’t feel anything right now except bone-shuddering relief and blazing goddamn satisfaction.Or, Alec's origin story.





	Sitting Pretty

**Author's Note:**

> Just a warning that this contains domestic violence, violence in general, and explicit language.

“Shut the fuck up, Jace.”

Alec’s voice is barely a whisper of air between them. His total concentration is focused on the lock before him. One hand is holding the end of a stethoscope to the vault door while the other turns the combination lock painstakingly slow.

Barely even breathing, he really does _not_ need to listen to Jace try to rap a verse from A Milli under his breath.

Thankfully, Jace stops trying to impersonate his favorite rapper and Alec listens as the last tumbler falls into place with the quietest of _snicks_.

Alec loops the stethoscope around his neck and with a sharp gesture to Jace, he carefully starts to open the vault door.

Wryly, he reflects that most seventeen year olds probably don’t have their own lock pick kits and they sure as hell couldn’t be found in the private library of one of the most influential judges in the city.

Alec will be eighteen in September but that seems a million years away. It’s a warm June night, the humidity enough so that five minutes outside has his shirt sticking to his back, but he can feel his freedom so close that he can almost taste it.

He hasn’t told his dad about his plans yet. He’s not afraid but he doesn’t relish that conversation either. Robert keeps talking about grooming Alec to follow in his footsteps eventually. This summer is an apprenticeship of sorts and Alec has gone along with it, hoping that it will help soothe ruffled feathers in a few months when he tells his dad that instead of following in the family’s footsteps, he’s been accepted into Columbia’s pre-law program.

So far, his assignments have been small and nothing he hasn’t done before. He might have just graduated from high school but he’s been well-versed in the Lightwood’s business since he was fourteen and just learning the most effective ways to extract information from a particularly tight-lipped source.

Tonight’s assignment is a little more sophisticated, a little more high-stakes. He and Jace-- his adopted brother that the family had taken in almost ten years ago-- had been told to visit Judge Huckley’s townhouse on the Upper West Side and secure a packet of incriminating evidence that the man had on Alec’s father.

They’d dressed as police officers, slipping into the back door unobserved. After spending the afternoon studying the blueprints of the home, they’d made their way to the library on the second floor with careful steps, making sure that they avoided the security cameras Huckley had installed along the hallway.

Gaining entry into the library, Jace had been lookout while Alec went over to the safe hidden behind a Matisse painting. The vault was over a hundred years old and by sheer coincidence, it had been one of the first models he’d ever practiced on.

Most people had soccer practice after school. Alec learned the fine art of lock-picking, among other equally vital skills.

As he opens the door, Alec nods once at Jace and his brother pads quietly into the hallway. Looking through the contents of the safe with a penlight, Alec sees a few pieces of jewelry tucked safely away and a dozen folders. Huckley isn’t due back for quite some time-- they’d watched him leave with his latest mistress almost an hour ago-- so Alec opens the top folder, skimming through the contents.

He knows what he’s found almost immediately.

He takes the folders and lays them on the desk to take with him. Turning back to the safe, he finds the packet with _Lightwood_ scrawled across the front. He opens the packet and takes the first page out to make sure he has whatever Robert needed.

As he sees photographic evidence of his father and one of his underlings disposing of a man Alec knows was a snitch, he nods to himself grimly.

He’s just closing the safe door and spinning the lock back to the precise number that it’d been left at when he hears it.

The front door opens and Alec can hear two sets of footsteps echoing in the foyer.

Jace ducks his head into the library with a panicked look. For being groomed to take over, Alec’s experience out in the field is paltry at best. While he paid attention during his lessons, Alec thought that he’d just have to bide his time on small assignments until he could get the fuck away from the family business and forget just how tarnished its name was.

Jace, for his part, is on the same page. Alec went with him just last week to the ROTC office. His brother wants to be an Air Force Captain one day and Alec knows that neither of them have signed up for this.

Still, Alec learned well at Robert’s knee and he remains calm as he takes a crucial second to process the fly that’s just landed in the ointment.

Grabbing the folders and incriminating evidence, Alec jerks his head toward the balcony. They might have to scale down the wall to the ground but there’s no other choice.

Jace has taken a single step into the library when they both freeze.

There’s the unmistakable sound of someone getting slapped, a pained cry followed by a sickly thud.

“You goddamn whore,” Huckley bellows out from downstairs. “Did you plan this? Do you have any idea how much you humiliated me this evening, in front of my friends and colleagues?”

There’s an indistinct reply before Huckley’s speaking again. His voice is full of rage, full of wounded pride and righteous fury and Alec takes a shaky breath as he listens.

“Judge Huckley, the biggest fucking cuckold in New York City. How many of my friends have you fucked, you scheming bitch? Did you think I wouldn’t find out? Timbers couldn’t keep his eyes off you-- or should I say your tits,” he sneers. “I thought you were a suitable prize to show the boys but it turns out you had your own plans. I saw the way you looked at him, at Foster and Merynthal. You’ve made me the laughingstock of the ninth circuit and I won’t have it.”

There’s the sound of a hand hitting flesh and the woman cries out. Jace and he share wide-eyed looks as a short scream rings throughout the house before it cuts off abruptly. Without thinking, Alec moves forward towards the door, towards Jace.

He’s stopped by Jace’s hand on his chest. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing,” his brother hisses and Alec glares back.

“Are you kidding me? We can’t just let him kill her, Jace.”

Shaking his head impatiently, Jace replies, “What do you want to do? Run down there and blow this mission? Huckley is twice our age and it sounds like he’s drunk. You can’t take him. You’ll get your ass kicked if he doesn’t outright kill you.”

“Someone has to save her,” Alec hisses and shoves Jace aside to stride down the corridor. 

He walks to the entryway staircase, with its wrought iron railing that curves against the wall. At the top of the stairs, he looks down and his gut churns at the scene.

The woman’s dress is torn to shreds, half hanging off her body. Huckley’s a looming shadow standing over her as she tries to cower away. Closer now, Alec can hear her desperate pleas and he flinches as Huckley serves a vicious kick to her midsection that has her folding into herself, whimpering.

“I swear I didn’t do anything,” she whispers and Huckley laughs menacingly before he abruptly bends down and grabs a fistful of her hair, yanking her up to just inches from his face. She gasps for air before choking on her breath, all the while tears fall silently down red cheeks imprinted with stark finger marks.

“I knew you were a fucking slut when I picked you up at that club the first time. I thought you were a smart whore, though, and that you knew better than to play with fire.”

He yanks her closer, seems to get off on her pained yelp. “Do you know what happens when you play with fire, little girl?”

He doesn’t give her a chance to respond before he leans imperceptibly closer and whispers, “You get burned.”

A hand wraps around the woman’s throat and Alec’s learned enough to read the intent in Huckley’s position, in the tension in his arms. 

Huckley’s voice wavered in the way a drunk’s does. His movements are violent but the slightest bit unsteady. He’s made up his mind and Alec knows that he has no intention of stopping until she’s dead.

Alec bolts down the stairs. His mind feels a million miles away as he focuses on one thought. He can’t let the judge kill the girl. He has to do something.

Even as panic and fear drown his gut, it’s like everything is razor sharp. There’s a calmness to his movements, an icy focus as he takes the stairs and runs over to the pair.

Without ceremony, he yanks the judge away from the woman. Huckley’s fingers leave scratches along her throat and blood wells up in the shallow tears. She gasps for breath after desperate breath, clawing her way away from the two men.

Alec’s attention barely wavers, though. Huckley wrestles in his grip before getting free. Like a charging bull, he spins around and puts his full force behind a right hook.

Alec ducks just in time and it’s like the red flag’s been waved.

Alec might be young but he hit his latest growth spurt a few months ago. He’s well over six feet tall now but Huckley still towers over him by a few inches and he’s built like a goddamn bulldozer while Alec still has the leanness of youth.

His agility serves him well but it doesn’t take long before he punches Alec in the stomach with a surprisingly sure hit to his solar plexus that makes him feel like his lungs have been wrenched from his chest. He doubles over and Huckley uses that to knee him in the groin.

With a low groan, Alec falls to the floor and he’s barely aware of Huckley turning him over before there are now hands at his throat. Alec chokes on his breath and his hands scramble up to claw futilely at Huckley’s grip.

Alec has been in his share of fights but nothing like this, nothing where the stakes were so fucking high, where the victor claimed his prize by killing his opponent in cold blood.

Vision going grey at the edges, Alec’s not aware of anything but the blood pounding in his ears and as he looks up, his gaze is hopelessly lost in Huckley’s. Moonlight spills through the windows and bathes them both in icy silver.

Alec looks into the eyes of a madman and sees his own death reflected in the unseeing gaze.

He can feel his heart constrict as he tries to take a breath, tries desperately for just one desperate inhale.

In the next minute, though, something comes over him.

Alec will remember this night for the rest of his goddamn life and the next few minutes are seared onto his fucking soul like the most stubborn of stains.

With a shaking arm, he has just enough strength left to raise it to Huckley’s face. He pushes his thumb into Huckley’s eye, and feels Huckley’s bellow of confused pain deep in his chest. He keeps going. Alec doesn’t give up and his focus is entirely on this one simple task.

He feels the give of the eye and almost immediately, blood starts pouring down Huckley’s face, dripping onto Alec.

Huckley’s grip slackens and Alec pulls away, takes a greedy gulp of air that has nausea building in his throat. He’s gasping, reaching for great lungfuls of merciful oxygen and Alec doesn’t know if it’s the rage or the alcohol or the madness still clouding the judge but Huckley lunges for him again.

The next few minutes are full of grunts and whimpers and wheezing breaths. Flesh hitting flesh and guttural groans echo in the foyer as blood stains the once pristine marble floor. Alec lands more hits than he takes, however, and as he straddles Huckley, he keeps punching the man with all his might, losing himself in the rhythmic pattern.

Huckley lies prone but Alec can still taste the edge of terror that had gripped him, still sees his death lingering just out of reach and he can’t stop. Barely aware of it, Alec reaches a bloodstained hand with scraped knuckles around Huckley’s throat and leans down.

He sees awareness in the judge’s one good eye, a light of recognition.

Hovering over the judge, Alec meets his gaze and now he sees what he must have looked like just a few moments before. He sees the gut-wrenching terror as Huckley faces his own mortality at Alec’s own hand.

For his part, Alec doesn’t feel anything right now except bone-shuddering relief and blazing goddamn satisfaction.

“The Lightwoods send their regards,” he says softly and then he breaks Huckley’s neck, relishing the snap of bone and tendon.

The hall falls silent except for Alec’s great, heaving breaths. Someone touches his shoulder and he jerks back, falling on his ass.

Huckley is a still body beside him.

Looking up, he sees Jace watching him carefully. Neither man moves and Alec’s mind feels wrapped in cotton. Now that the fight is over, it’s like someone’s cut his strings and he collapses, suddenly out of energy.

A whimper cuts through the silence though and Alec’s head snaps up to see the woman still in the house, looking at him with wide eyes full of fear.

He lurches to standing and Jace doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything as Alec takes the few halting steps over to her. She whimpers, and tries to crawl back but Alec reaches her in just a second.

Crouching down, he catalogs the cuts on her cheek and the tear stains that reflect the moonlight.

He reaches a hand out and runs a careful finger over the dark finger marks on her neck, already bruising blue.

The woman watches him and distantly, Alec wonders that she isn’t breathing, that her chest isn’t even moving.

He raises his eyes from her neck to her eyes. There’s a moment, brief but bare where they just study each other.

“If you ever tell anyone who was here, I will find you and those will be the last words you ever speak. Understand?”

She nods once and Alec echoes the gesture before he smiles, just a little. “Leave.”

Scrambling up, the woman stumbles toward the back door. Alec watches dispassionately as she stumbles and trips, falling down onto her knees before she gathers herself up and flees into the night.

Alec stands and his vision wavers. Turning around, his gaze snags on the body and he freezes.

“Oh God, Jace,” he whispers, staring at Huckley. “What did I do?”

His knees give out and Alec falls hard to the marble floor but he doesn’t feel the impact as he studies the judge laying on the ground, neck twisted and face grotesque.

He can’t breathe.

Alec’s barely aware of the wrenching gasps he’s taking as he tries desperately to get some goddamn air to his lungs. It feels like his chest is on fire as he look at the man’s he’s just killed.

His eyes fall down to his hands and he sees dried blood under the nails and palms stained red.

Choking, Alec bends over and throws up right onto the floor. It feels like his organs are trying to escape and he viciously wants to cleanse himself.

 _I’ve never killed a man before_ , Alec thinks dully. _I’m a murderer_.

On his hands and knees, Alec heaves up everything until he’s spitting up stomach acid.

He doesn’t startle this time when he feels Jace lay a hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t look up, though.

Jace gently guides him until he’s sitting up and Alec watches him with glazed eyes.

Jace wipes his mouth and leans forward until their foreheads are touching. Neither one says anything and Jace takes a shuddering breath before he pulls away and catches Alec’s eyes.

He stares into Alec’s goddamn soul.

“You did what you had to,” his brother says hoarsely. “You saved that woman and you killed Huckley out of self defense. He didn’t give you a choice.”

Taking a bracing breath, Jace seems to bolster himself before he continues. “You need to leave,” he says slowly, making sure that Alec understands.

Alec frowns and starts shaking his head. “I can’t leave--”

“Alec,” Jace cuts in sharply. “Take the folders and the evidence and _go home_. Give them to Robert and take a shower. Burn your clothes. Listen to whatever else he has to say. Let me deal with this.”

“I can’t ask you to--”

“You’re not asking me,” Jace stubbornly replies. “I will clean the house up and set it to rights. I will dispose of the body.” Ignoring Alec’s flinch, he continues, “You’re my brother. Nothing’s changed with that. Let me do this, Alec.”

 _Let me take care of you_ is what Alec hears and he’s quiet for a minute, studying Jace before he finally nods.

“Thank you,” he replies hoarsely.

Jace pulls him into a bone crushing hug and Alec wraps his own arms around him mechanically.

He feels a piece of himself knit back into place at the embrace.

“I love you, Alec. I will stand by you, no matter what.”

Pulling back, Alec nods once before he climbs to his feet, Jace following. 

He stares down at Huckley’s body and as nausea builds again, he swallows hard. He makes himself study the corpse and sears every detail onto his memory.

 _This is what I’m capable of_ , Alec thinks. 

He backs away and heads toward the floor where he’d dropped the papers. Grabbing them all up, Alec tries to ignore just how badly his hands are shaking.

Looking at Huckley one last time, Alec turns his back to the scene, to Jace taking off his coat and rolling up his sleeves.

He leaves through the front door and doesn’t look back again.

 

It doesn’t take long to get home and Alec goes directly to Robert’s office. He sees the light on and pushes the door open, letting it swing until he sees his father bent over paperwork at his imposing desk.

Looking up, Robert opens his mouth before he shuts it close with a snap.

“What happened,” he asks briskly.

So, Alec tells him. The room is silent as Alec explains about the woman and the madness lurking in Huckley’s eyes, and his own desperate need to survive.

Robert listens without interruption until Alec winds down. There’s a few moments of silence before Robert stands.

“You got the file I needed, I assume?”

Nodding dully, Alec holds it out along with the dozen other folders.

“Huckley seemed to be blackmailing a few people. I found these files in his safe. From what I’ve seen, there’s at least one senator and the owner of a shipping company on his list.”

Robert takes everything, tapping it against his palm a few times as he considers his heir.

Finally, he brings a hand onto Alec’s shoulder. Desperately, Alec tries not to flinch away.

“I’m proud of you, son,” he says as he releases Alec and turns back to his desk to settle in his chair.

He stares out the window as he continues, “I remember my first kill. I was nineteen and I found out that the bastard had been doctoring the books and skimming some of my money-- some of our money-- from the till. He never saw it coming.”

Robert’s voice is bemused, proud as he tells Alec about it. Alec feels sick.

Straightening in his seat, Robert flips open the folder about the Lightwoods and starts reading. Absently, he remarks, “Go take a shower and dispose of your clothes. I’ll send a man around to make sure that Jace did a thorough enough job and we won’t mention this again.”

He looks up at Alec and smiles a little. “I was worried, you know,” Robert admits softly. “I didn’t know if you had it in you. I wondered if you had the skills and stomach to take over one day. I’m glad to see that my fear was for nothing.”

Robert dismisses him the next minute and Alec turns on his heel and makes his way to his bedroom.

He strips out of his clothes and lights the fireplace that has him sweating almost immediately in the June heat. He watches as flames devour his blood-stained clothes, as they erase the evidence of what he’s done.

Heading towards the bathroom, Alec turns the water on before stepping into the shower. He doesn’t know how long he stays under the scalding spray but he scrubs and scrubs and scrubs at his skin until it’s raw, until it’s painful, until he can’t feel anything but the burn from the water and the soap.

He can’t get clean, though. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be clean again.

 

It’s a few days later when Alec comes home from the library. He’s been spending as much time as he can alone, away from everyone and everything he knows. He doesn’t want to be around anything familiar, feels like he’s tainting things by his mere presence.

The library is his safe haven, even if he has to pretend that he doesn't see Jace across the room standing sentry with worried eyes.

Climbing up the stairs, Alec’s exhausted. Opening his bedroom door, he kicks it shut behind him and freezes when he sees the gift laying in the middle of his bed.

He walks over and picks up the box with the accompanying card.

 _Alexander_ is scrawled across the front.

He flips open the card and his soul lurches at the note. Somehow, he’s not surprised.

_My son,_

_The first kill is a rite of passage for the men in our family. His death marks your ascension to manhood and what a man you’re turning out to be._

_I hope you like the watch and that every time you check the time, you’re reminded of the pride a father has for his son and your capability as the future head of this family and its empire._

_You will be king one day, Alec, and I know you’ll do a spectacular job of it._

_I’m proud of you,  
Robert_

Alec blinks furiously before he opens the box and sees a silver Rolex staring up at him. The watch cost a fortune and Alec laughs a little, hysterical, and such a gift.

If he’d only known what he’d have to do to get something so exorbitant.

Taking the watch out, he slips it onto his wrist. It’s heavy, seems to weigh more than it should.

It fits perfectly and gleams against his arm. Shivering a little, Alec swallows hard.

He likes it.

Moving over to the window, Alec stares down at at a bustling New York. He’s not stupid, is well aware that the Lightwoods have dwelt in the shadows for decades. He’s the latest in a long line of men who have been groomed to take over such a dynasty.

Alec had thought that he was almost free, though. He wanted to be a lawyer. He wanted the sunlight.

He’s so cold that he doesn’t think he’ll ever be warm again.

With a sigh, something hardens in his chest. This is his life. This is who he was always meant to be.

He knows now that there was never any hope of escaping, that something dark lingers in his chest and clouds his soul. 

Huckley was a vicious, heartbreaking lesson but Alec’s learned it well. It wouldn’t do to chafe against tradition.

He sent his regrets to Columbia’s admissions office just that morning.

There’s grief but Alec can’t help but remember those seconds of satisfaction he’d felt before he snapped Huckley’s neck. There’d been pride there before the devastation and Alec knows enough to know that most people wouldn’t have felt that.

Jace finds him a few hours later, still standing in front of the window.

Alec looks up and Jace sucks in a harsh breath before moving over to stand next to him.

Staring over the city-- his city one day-- Alec murmurs, “Did you mean it when you said you’d always stand by me?”

From his peripheral, he sees Jace’s eyes close and his expression looking mournful for a split second before he opens his eyes and meets Alec’s steady gaze.

“I did,” he says somberly. “You’re my brother and my best friend. I’ll always be by your side.”

Alec stares into eyes he knows as well as his own before he blinks once, slowly, and turns to look back out the windows.

“Then, this is our life now,” he murmurs. “And what a life it will be.”

 

Over the next few months as New York sinks into summer, Alec takes on increasing responsibility. Robert lets him in and Alec learns more in three months than he had in the previous five years.

His assignments become more dangerous and Alec watches life trickle from men with increasing frequency. He’s put through his paces as he becomes intimately acquainted with what it means to look into a man’s eyes and snuff out his life.

September rolls around and Alec turns eighteen. With it, he takes on even more responsibility and his days start to follow a routine.

Alec doesn’t feel anything, though. He does what he’s assigned and he learns the ropes and he watches his father, cataloging all the mistakes he sees and making a list of what he’ll change when he takes over one day.

He doesn’t expect to so soon.

A few weeks after his birthday, Alec walks into Robert’s office and sees his life change once again at the hands of a dead man.

Robert’s throat is slit ear to ear in a grotesque simile of a smile. His father’s eyes are unseeing and Alec walks over mechanically and sees the note pinned to his chest.

 _Nobody steals what’s mine. Consider this a warning, young Lightwood, that you don’t follow too closely in your father’s footsteps_.

It’s not signed and Alec doesn’t have time to figure out who did this before he’s calling for the only person he can think of.

Jace comes running into the office and stumbles to a stop at the scene.

“It looks like Robert took on more than he could chew,” Alec says coldly. “I need you to dispose of his body and get a few people in here to clean this place up.”

Jace nods once and steps closer to lay a hand on Alec’s shoulder.

Stiffening, Alec shrugs out of Jace’s grasp. He stares at what remains of his father as he says, “I’m fine, Jace. I believe I gave you orders?”

There’s the barest beat of silence before Jace replies softly, “Yes, sir.”

Nodding once, Alec leaves the office and goes all the way to his bedroom before he slumps against the closed door.

He doesn’t know who killed his dad but he needs to find out. He needs to tell his men-- no longer his dad’s employees but his own.

Distantly, he thanks God that Izzy is away at boarding school in London at that by a stroke of fate-- which might not have been so coincidental at all-- Max and his mother are visiting her for a few weeks.

Alec gets through the next few months in a blur. He becomes the leader his father always pushed for and his men fall in line with barely a hitch.

He takes over operations and acquires an Athletic Club to use as a front, selling the townhouse and its memories in the process. He works around the clock and shores up relationships and alliances with those who think he’s too young and too vulnerable or too inexperienced to take over the Lightwood Empire.

He proves them all wrong. He oversees construction on the club and makes investments all over the city. More often than not, Alec sleeps in the bedroom he’d fortified at the gym and he makes so many decisions that his head’s dizzy with it.

He spends what little free time he has looking for his father’s murderer. Alec might not have loved the man but in this business, slights can never go unnoticed or unavenged. Alec needs to retain his father’s power and build his own and he can only do that by finding the person who killed Robert and making an example of them.

Alec throws himself into business and doesn’t look back.

 

A year later, Alec’s sitting in his office looking over his arms dealing profits for the month when there’s a knock on his door.

Bringing the glass of whiskey up to his mouth, he sighs before taking a lingering sip. If it’s not one thing it’s another and Alec’s job is never goddamn done.

He looks down at his watch, at the shining reminder that keeps steady time, and frowns a little.

“Come in,” he calls and settles back in his seat as he sees Jace enter.

“He’s waiting for you,” his brother and right hand man says.

Standing, Alec nods once. “Thanks, Jace. Has he given anything up yet?”

Jace shakes his head. “He refuses to say anything about the lead we’ve found. He’s all yours, man.”

Alec smiles and its glacial. “Well, then, let’s get to the party,” he murmurs and moves to leave the room.

Before he can though, Jace is stopping him with an arm across his chest.

Alec looks up at Jace with a raised brow, not saying anything.

“There are rumours floating around about Bane and I think we need to talk about them first.”

Shrugging out of Jace’s hold, Alec reaches for the door.

“As long as Bane stays out of my way, I’m leaving him be. I have bigger things to worry about than an emerging rival.”

“You’re not worried that he’s going to unseat you? That he’s taking over from _his_ father and by the rumours, doing a damned good job of it?”

Exasperated, Alec rolls his eyes. “He hasn’t come after me yet and until he makes a move, I refuse to split my men even further. I’m still on a shaky foundation, Jace, and I can’t afford to throw my focus onto a man who might never become an issue.”

Jace opens his mouth but Alec stops him with a firm look. “Leave it, Jace,” he says sternly.

He waits a beat to make sure that Jace won’t disagree further before he turns toward the door and heads to one of his interrogation rooms.

Bane was a big name in the underworld but Alec can’t pay him any mind when he’s still trying to figure out who killed his father, when he's still establishing his own rule. 

He’s started hearing whispers about his perceived weakness and Alec can’t afford for those to go undefended. He needs something fast and the man currently waiting to be questioned was almost guaranteed to have the answer.

Alec rolls up his sleeves as he strides down the corridor.

He’s relaxed with the quiet authority his men admire shown in his graceful steps. Alec’s the king of his little corner of the world and the next few hours are more of the same.

 _What a difference a year makes_ , he thinks wryly and looks down at his watch in reflex, unaware of even doing so.

He nods to the guard stationed outside the door and the man opens it for him as Alec steps smoothly through it.

The man chained to the chair in the middle of the cement floored room looks up on autopilot before he freezes.

He knows that Lightwood has a reputation. He’s heard the whispers and shrinks back in his seat as his chest lurches in fear.

Alec Lightwood stares at him with cold eyes and an icy smile that shows just how unbothered he is by what’s about to happen. With an almost imperceptible nod, another guard rolls a cart laden with tools to the middle of the room.

What he sees on it has the man choking in terror, trying desperately to wrench himself from the chair.

Alec watches his expression with an amused smile and reaches for one of the knives lined up neatly in its tray.

“Now, Randall, I have a few questions. . .”

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me on tumblr or twitter @carmenlire!


End file.
